Antiterrorism Law Defended as Hearings Start

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: April 6, 2005

The Justice Department stood firm on Tuesday in opposing wide-ranging efforts to limit the government's ability to demand library records and conduct secret searches in intelligence investigations, but it did agree to minor modifications in the sweeping antiterrorism law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

''The department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans,'' Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

At the same time, however, Mr. Gonzales said ''libraries should not become safe havens for people who are here in this country and do want to do harm to other Americans.''

Mr. Gonzales's forceful defense of the expanded antiterrorism powers granted under the USA Patriot Act came at the start of what is expected to be months of hearings in both the Senate and the House. Sixteen provisions in the law are to expire by year's end, and a decision over whether to extend them, and whether the government's expanded powers have eroded civil liberties, is shaping up as one of the biggest legislative battles in the current Congress.

''Before we rush to renew any controversial powers created by the Patriot Act,'' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the panel, ''we need to understand how these powers have been used and whether they've been effective.''

With the Justice Department lobbying for expanded powers and harsher sentences to fight terrorism, a group of Republican and Democratic senators countered by reintroducing a stalled proposal that would restrict the government's ability to demand records and conduct searches in terror investigations.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said at the hearing on Tuesday that he planned to introduce an amendment to the Patriot Act that would bar anyone on a federal terrorism watch list from buying a gun. Mr. Schumer's proposal comes weeks after a Congressional report found that dozens of terror suspects were allowed to buy guns last year because being on a watch list does not, on its own, prevent such a purchase.

Senators from both parties said on Tuesday that the lack of firm data from the Bush administration hindered their ability to assess the effects of using the antiterrorism law. In an effort to ease those concerns, the Justice Department released newly declassified data for the second straight day.

The latest batch dealt in part with the department's use of Section 215 of the law, known by critics as the ''library provision'' because it allows the government to demand library records in intelligence investigations. The newly declassified data showed that in 35 instances since late 2003, the department had used the law to gain access to information on apartment leasing, driver's licenses, financial records and other data in intelligence investigations.

Mr. Gonzales emphasized, however, that the department had never used the provision to demand records from libraries or bookstores or to get information related to medical or gun records -- all areas that have prompted privacy concerns and protests from civil rights advocates, conservative libertarians and other critics of the law.

Officials acknowledged that some libraries had turned over records voluntarily, while the Justice Department has secured access to other library material through traditional criminal subpoenas.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, asked Mr. Gonzales whether the administration would consider exempting libraries from Section 215. But Mr. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who testified alongside Mr. Gonzales, rejected the idea and said such a move would harm the government's ability to track terrorism because suspects had been known to use library computers to communicate with one another and to research jihadist literature.

Noting that the Justice Department had not used the law to demand library records, Mr. Gonzales said: ''It should not be held against us that we've exercised, in my judgment, restraint. It's comparable to a police officer who carries a gun for 15 years and never draws it. Does that mean that for the next five years he should not have that weapon because he had never used it?''

Mr. Specter, an ally of the Bush administration on many law enforcement issues, was not persuaded. ''Attorney General Gonzales, I don't think your analogy is apt,'' he said, ''but if you want to retain those records as your position, I understand.''

In what Justice Department officials characterized as a ''clarification'' of existing policy, Mr. Gonzales said the administration supported amending the law to allow someone served with a demand for records to contact a lawyer, a concession sought by critics.

He also said the administration would support establishing in the law that the records must be considered ''relevant'' to a national security investigation, but he rejected overtures from some committee members to impose a higher standard of proof in establishing ''probable cause'' that the records were needed in an intelligence investigation.

Photo: Robert S. Mueller III, left, the F.B.I. director, looked on yesterday as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales addressed a Senate hearing. (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)